Missing Out On The Elf Service
The Daily Record, 8 March 2003
By Paul English
SHARON SMALL reckons the casting directors on Lord of The Rings missed a golden opportunity when they failed to cast her in their blockbuster trilogy. The diminutive Scot is adamant she's so elfin-like she would hardly have needed any make- up.
"I had this conversation with my boyfriend at the weekend," says the pretty star of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
"I realised I could have been in Lord of The Rings. Look," she says, quickly rearranging her spiky hair, and looking me straight in the eyes. "All I need to do is put my hair behind my ears, have them pointed a little, and there you have it - I'm an elf."
It's true enough. And she would have been a good deal cheaper than Cate Blanchett. Not every woman would warm to the adjectives elfin, and pixie-esque. Nor would every woman take on the dowdy character of DS Barbara Havers, to whom style is something you climb to get over a fence. But Sharon's not bothered by people's perceptions of her. Well, apart from the tiny zit just above her lip that she keeps asking me not to look at. That's really bothering her.
"It's always the way," she says. "You go for ages without a single spot, and then there's one waiting for you on the day you're going to talk to a journalist." She needs to chill. It's just a tiny plook. Nothing to worry about. Besides she'd better get used to them. There'll doubtless be more in the next few weeks, when Sharon comes north to shoot low- budget film Natural History with Gerard Butler and Emily Mortimer. Set in a chip shop in Greenock, pore-clogging evaporated fat will doubtless be an occupational hazard.
"I'm coming back up to Scotland this week to start rehearsals, so you know where you can find me in the evenings - doon the chippie learning how to wrap chips quickly."
That, and remembering that it's salt and vinegar on the west coast, salt and sauce on the east, where she grew up. Sharon spent the first few years of her life playing in the streets of Drumchapel and Clydebank before her family moved east to Kinghorn in Fife. She's been in London for 17 years, and her accent has acquired an occasional plummy roundness, the likes of which is probably only heard in Drumchapel on Radio 4. She felt she had to turn her back on her native country to take advantage of the acting opportunities in the Big Smoke and reckons sometimes the Scottish mindset can hold people back.
"I think as a nation we have less self-belief. We're much harder on ourselves. We can be tough, and fight more, but I think if you have a Scottish and an English person going into the same situation, you'll find they have very different views. The Scottish person will go in thinking they probably can't do this, but they'll give it their best shot, whereas the English person will go in thinking: 'Of course I can do this'. I think Scottish people can sometimes shoot themselves in the foot being a bit negative. We're hard on ourselves, which is wrong. Think about all the Scottish achievers there have been, all the inventors, all the renowned academics. We trap ourselves with that."
The fighting streak is a characteristic Sharon recognises in herself, although not particularly proudly. Especially when recalling "battering" her best mate.
"I've been trying to get in touch with this girl I played with in Drumchapel when I was wee," she says. "I've been on Friends Reunited and everything, but I just can't find her. Her name's Tracey Came. I just want to get in touch with her and say sorry for battering her one day. She was my best pal and I didn't get to her birthday party after that."
Sharon recalls: "I remember pulling her hair and punching her. Even at the time I was thinking: 'I don't want to fight you.' She was saying the same, but it just happened. I don't even remember why now. How horrible is that? She gave me as good back, though."
These days, Sharon's not so quick with the fisticuffs. She's mellowing, is happy with her career, and is one year down the line in a relationship with Lynley assistant director Adam Young. She chills by falling asleep at night to Turin Brakes, or Scottish composer Craig Armstrong, and spends her "down time" on the phone to her mates, "getting absolutely plastered" or going to the cinema.
"The last film I saw was The Magdalene Sisters," she recalls. "Afterwards, I was right on the phone to my mum in Fife, telling her she should go and see it. She was taught by nuns and I think she should go and see the film to help her release those demons."
Sharon was baptised a Catholic, "but my mum sort of ran away from Catholicism. She didn't want her kids growing up with any sort of guilt. There's a line in that film, which is the crux of the whole thing. One of the girls says: 'You're not a man of God'. These girls were broken and intimidated by people who were supposedly men and women of God. It's just incredibly powerful."
She seems to admire her mother's guts on that front, and is at a stage now where she's beginning to think about babies herself. "Kids are part of my plan, but I'm 35, and I don't really know when that's going to happen," she says. "Unfortunately women have biological clocks, which dictate when you have them. You men can go on and on."
It's not clear whether she and Adam are at a stage to be thinking about kids together. But one thing is clear, Sharon's keen to put more effort into her relationships.
"Adam and I have been together for a year and we're taking things slowly. I've been focusing on my career for so long, but after a while you have to look at sustaining the other parts of your life. I have to look around me and wonder if what I've got is what I want and what other sort of things have I been building along the way? I realise how much I've neglected, especially when it comes to relationships. I've maybe not put as much into them as I could. That comes down to not realising the importance of really nurturing something. You've got to feed a relationship. And if your focus is your career, then the relationship isn't going to work. But now I'm getting round to thinking that I want to put relationships first and then my job second."
She's had an epiphany of sorts, evidently: "Before it wouldn't have been an issue if I had to go away for a job for six months. God knows, I'd probably even have asked my other half to drive me to the airport."
After filming hit BBC drama Glasgow Kiss in Scotland three years ago, Sharon's glad to be coming back to her home stomping grounds once again. Sure, there's none of the glamour associated with her last big project, About A Boy with Hugh Grant, but there are certain things missing from the celebrity-led life of an ex-pat actress - with its red- carpet premiers, pink champagne and wall-to-wall egos.
"I love coming back home to work," she says. "I see London as my home now, but I miss things about Scotland. In London, if someone bumps into you in a supermarket they just keep going as if you're not there. Scotland's different, and I love coming home. I know it's a cliche, but the people are so much friendlier."
But her real pleasure is something far simpler: "You get a decent plain loaf at home," she smiles. "Mum always makes sure she's got one in when I'm around."
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, BBC1, Monday, 8.30pm
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